Maurer AG to Stop Producing rides?

[rhyano]

I'm shocked this has not been posted here, but according to Parkworld Magazine, they are looking to potentially stop making rides. (Page 22)

 

 http://content.yudu.com/web/69r/0Aiy7l/PWMay2016/flash/resources/index.htm?refUrl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.parkworld-online.com%252F

[BlondyRidesOn]

That's disappointing. The only coaster from Maurer that I've been on was Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit at Universal Orlando Resort and it was pretty fun. I guess the demand wasn't there for their rides.

[Kenban]

I hate to see a coaster company go out of business or stop making coasters.  I have only ridden two of their rides but enjoyed both of them.  Steel Dragon at Waldameer is a great ride, the cars are not that comfortable but it is a lot of fun.

 

The problem is that Rip Ride Rockit is fun, but was a total disaster.  It likely killed sales in the US.  The ride opened late because of construction issues, which included, having to build the lift hill twice, for several years after it was built the station loading did not work correctly, the ride used to be frequently down, and the linkages between the cars have already needed to be replaced which caused significant downtime.  Universal has made the ride work, but it took large amounts of money, which most parks cannot afford.

[VekomaRulz]

Poor sales in China was mentioned as a reason. I guess all those Golden Horse knockoff spinning coasters hurt their sales a lot since it seems like they really took over that area (RCDB lists 80 spinning coasters from Golden Horse).

I thought they were doing ok with 4 coasters opened last year and 2 opening this year.

[bkroz]

Technical issues aside, Rip Ride Rockit just isn't a very good roller coaster. I certainly don't see the allure of the vertical lift (especially given that the drop isn't vertical?) and then it's loop, block brake, dip, block brake, turn, block brake, helix, block brake, hop... It's just not a very attractive coaster (especially given that they could've had a B&M like Universal Studios Japan) and the whole "music video" theme is odd, dated, and not fitting in a park that's moving away from the bare-bones "studios" theme. the songs from the Choose-Your-Music gimmick (to my knowledge) have never been updated, don't sync up to the ride experience at all...

 

And the X-Cars were supposed to be the starring point of the ride, but half of them gave infamously rough experiences while the other half were fine (which is odd in and of itself) and they caused enough problems that, for a long time, the rumor was that Universal was just going to buy a new fleet of trains from someone else.

[jcgoble3]

don't sync up to the ride experience at all...

 

IIRC, back in 2012, I found that Kenny Chesney's "Living in Fast Forward" worked reasonably well with the pace of the ride. Not perfect, of course, far from it, but reasonably well.

 

Of course, my memory could be playing tricks on me.

[TTD-120-420]

I wouldn't say it is a rough ride, but it definitely has some weird/annoying vibrations to it. I think it would have been better if it was a MACK coaster, but what do I know.

[purdude86]

I kind of agree with bkroz. It's still a fun ride overall but a bit disappointing as there are so many block brakes on it. Basically have one between every element so never get to really get going on it.